7 Years
by x.Kaze-chan
Summary: He was reaching for a hand that wasn't there anymore. "If the world ends, would you still try to understand what you never will?" He had exactly seven years to take a chance and finally live. Seven years passed and—he was still dead. /SasuSaku/


Summary: He was reaching for a hand that wasn't there anymore. _"If the world ends, would you still try to understand what you never will?" _He had exactly seven years to take a chance and finally _live_. Seven years passed and—he was still _dead_.

Disclaimer: I don't own _Naruto. _

Rating: T (contains content not suitable for children)

* * *

_**Tick**_**! ****Tock.**

_[Are you scared of little old…_**me**_?] _

He watched the hand in front of him—

"_Hey, take _**my**_ hand if you're scared!"_

—and flicked it away without a care.

_he could hear the clock ticking._

He didn't give a—

"_Don't you love _**me**_?"_

—shit.

_Won't you love me?  
Don't you care?  
Why don't you take it—_

and so;  
that little hand  
that always waited for him—

_my hand? _

left. &disappeared.

_((Tick! Tock! Tick Tock!))_

_**that**_ hand was

_Tick tock! _

**gone with the wind. **

_Your time is up! _

…

He reached out for it and

felt…

_nothing_.

**Tick tock, tick tock,  
your time is up! **

_(…  
"Sayo…nara—!"  
…)_

* * *

**7**

**Y**

**E**

**A**

**R**

**S****. **

* * *

When he was fifteen, she had offered to be his shoulder. His place of comfort, his cave, and his heart's home. She had offered to _be_ his comfort. He had rejected her—broken her, or _tried_ to. He'd found out though that her heart was like a piece of stone with _emotions_. It was as if there wasn't any way to break her down. And so, she kept offering.

"_If you're feeling sad, you can always tell me, you know?"_

"…"

When he was sixteen, she had begun to _want_ to be his comfort. She didn't offer because he looked lonely—she offered because she had "_fallen in love with him_." She felt that _stupid_ tingly feeling young teens felt when they saw their crush walk by. She felt something she wanted no part of. But she couldn't help it. She continued wanting to be with him.

"_I'm _always_ here for you."_

"_Hn." _

When he was seventeen, she was beginning to brush by him accidentally. Small, meaningless tiny little unnoticeable touches. He knew—she did it on _purpose_. It couldn't have been more painfully obvious. He would ignore it though—and continue to play it out, pretending that they were what she interpreted them to be—_accidents_. So she kept brushing past him.

_(Touch, glance, blush.)_

"_Sorry, Sasuke-kun."_

_Sorry his ass._

When he was eighteen, he was _really_ getting annoyed by her. Seriously—he was beginning to think this was all a set up, she was always with him in _every_ class. It was unusual—and he began to suspect she arranged this. He _hated_ seeing her pink hair every morning. He hated seeing her green eyes. He hated _her_. But she continued to pester him mentally.

"_Sasuke-kun, we're in the same class this year too!"_

"_Aa."_

"_What a coincidence, ne?"_

_Coincidence, che. _

_**Right**__. _

When he was nineteen, he'd had enough. He was getting tired of listening to her noble attempts at trying to lessen his loneliness. He was sick of her pretending as if she really cared. She only wanted him for his looks—his money—his power—the fortune left behind by his parents. He didn't believe her when she confessed she was afraid she'd really fallen in love with him. But she _did_ love him. In fact, her confession took her nearly two straight weeks to figure out and she was so scared that he'd hate her afterwards (not that he already didn't). She took the risk and so, she confessed.

"_S-Sasuke-kun…um…I…"_

"…_Hn?"_

"_I think I…err…"_

"…"

"_Sasuke-kun, I—!"_

"_What?!"_

"…_I'm sorry but… I think_ I love you_." _

_Good cover. He bet she meant, "I love your money!" _

When he was twenty, he decided to confront her. To tell her off for good. To make sure she got the idea that he had no interest in her at all. For her to know that he didn't like girls with annoying pink hair, annoying green eyes, and just plain _annoying_. He'd let her know afterwards all the girls he'd slept with, and that out of all the countless girls he'd managed to toy with—none of them were her. She wasn't even good enough to be his _toy_. And so he told her—and unexpectedly, she still smiled weakly at him through unshed tears.

"_I don't love you. I don't like you. I hate you. You're annoying."_

_She blinked at the sudden outburst from him before gathering a hold of her shock to give him a confused look._

"_S-Sasuke-kun…what brought this on?"_

"_Five years brought this on." _

"…_F-Five years…?"_

_She made herself—forced herself not to realize what he meant was that her last five years of loving him caused him to do this to her _today_._

"_I never liked you."_

_And so, with the final notion that made it clear he had finished talking, she did something that made his heart drop in disappointment._

_She looked up discreetly at him, tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, and…_smiled_. _

"_Well, it's good that you're honest. I'll be honest too. I'll always love you, Sasuke-kun."_

_Her heart wasn't penetrable._

When he was twenty one, he finally pierced through her heart because she—…She left. She'd moved out of the university one day—her dorm neatly cleaned and not a speck of dust left behind. There was not even a note. No romantic little last farewell to him. No _"I'll still love you" _written prettily on parchment. No scrap of paper for him to skim through and throw away. She was just all of a sudden gone. The professor had no idea where she went—just that she'd moved out of the city.

_He opened the door to her dorm—expecting to see her there._

_Expecting that the idiotic professor had been mistaken and that she hadn't gone anywhere._

_After the last six years of her infatuation with him, she couldn't have left finally._

_But when the door was thrown open—_

_it was empty. _

…_She had…left. _

_**He had won.**_

-

X

-

-

He was waiting for the magical climax to hit his life. That most spectacular point in his journey to death where it's the most amazing moment ever. This moment—this moment without her. He had been waiting a whole year for something awesome to happen since her leave. But _nothing_ did. Nothing ever happened.

In fact—if it could actually be possible, his miserable life had gotten even worse without her. Now, there was no one to say I love you to him and no one was there to care for him above all other. He felt…he felt more alone than when he had her at the tip of his finger. No stupid toy was good anymore, he didn't enjoy anything anymore and above all, he didn't feel…_right_.

And then…and then that thing happened. He had opened the door to his flat one day and had walked nonchalantly—scratch that, he was never nonchalant—he walked stiffly outside to get the mail. He grabbed the pile of mail and walked back inside, flipping through the envelopes until his finger hit the edge of a _pink_ colored envelope edged with _orange_. It was blinding—disgusting and absolutely revolting to look at.

He shut the door behind him with his foot and reached his hand behind him to lock it in place before walking to the living room and sat down, placing the rest of the mail onto the table before taking a good look at that blinding envelope. What he saw made his heart drop like a million feet below hell.

**From Haruno Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto**

She _was_ supposed to be gone. She _wasn't_ supposed to contact him. She _wasn't_ supposed to make his life seem like those dramas on TV. She _wasn't_ supposed to reappear in his life like those _frilly_ girls usually did in those _frilly_ movies. But being the same pink haired idiot she was—she always did the unexpected thing. He now wondered if she planned these things accordingly—

"_First, I'm gonna confess! Then when he rejects me, I'll totally still like him! Then I'll leave him when I seem so obsessed! And then a year later, I'll like totally do a cliché turn and reappear in his life—ohhh but with a _twist_!" _

—yea, he was _positive_ that's what she planned. He brushed it aside though, uninterested in what she had "planned" the last couple of years and set his attention back on that inferior envelope once more. He grabbed it rather harshly before flipping it over and ripped it open rashly. It made a loud tearing sound before he pulled out the card inside.

The card was white and the front was decorated with a pop up cherry blossom tree and a picture of a random stick figure sitting under it, eating a _cup of instant ramen_. If this card wasn't custom made—well he wasn't sure what was going on with the world these days, maybe he _had_ been under a rock. He sighed before opening the card and groaned as that annoying melody played at weddings entered his ears.

_That annoying melody played at _**weddings**_._

_Dear Friend,_

_We (Haruno-soon-to-be-Uzumaki Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto) cordially invite you to our wedding and celebration party! Dattebayo, that's right! We're getting married! We'll tell you guys the complete story of everything from beginning to end at the party! Hope you can make it, buddy! _

_The wedding is in spring, __May 18__ at the __Sakura Park__. Please dress formally (but not prettier than Sakura-chan)! Before the wedding though, we hope you could join us for a celebration of our engagement! It will be at the __Hyuuga Mansion__ on __April 15__. Dress formally too—not too formally, save your better clothes for the wedding! _

_Tell your friends! _

_Your Friends, _

_Haruno-soon-to-be-Uzumaki Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto. _

Everything suddenly clicked and he felt the sudden urge to throw up.

"_I'll always love you, Sasuke-kun."_

Always his ass.

-

X

-

-

He was the only one that presumably saw her walk hastily away from the scene, tell-tale mascara that was starting to smear. He did the only thing he knew—he went after her. He followed her as she began to sprint as soon as she was sure "no one" was nearby anymore. He walked quickly, his strides matching her short sprints. She continued running, and running, until she finally threw open the door to… _the bathroom_.

She was beautiful. For the first time in the last seven years of knowing her—he finally saw her as more than an annoyance. She was beautiful; kneeling down there in her curve hugging satin red elbow length sleeved mini dress that hit her knees. Her head was bent over and she didn't know she had company because she was too busy reveling in her tears and smearing mascara. The dress had a low cut v-neck that told him she was no longer a girl—she was a _woman_.

An _engaged_ woman.

Her pink hair was long—waving down her back until her waist, successfully acting as a curtain between her face and him. He suddenly noticed how soft her hair looked.

He finally decided to make his presence known as he stepped forward, inside the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

"Sakura."

She looked up in a frightened haste, her spine chilling at the familiar deep voice. When her scared viridian eyes met his cold onyx ones—she felt her eyes widen remarkably. She stuttered in her haste, "S-S-S…Sasuke…" he took note that the affectionate suffix she often used for him was gone. He held her gaze and before he knew what happened—she had stood up and thrown herself at him, her arms grabbing his sides tightly before she dug her face deep into his toned chest, feeling the heat radiate off the body she'd left a year ago.

He didn't know why he felt so compelled to wrap his own arms around her smaller, thinner waist. Maybe because in the seven years she'd spent devoted to him—he might have…_gotten used to her_.

He expected her to tell him she missed him, that she still loved him, that getting engaged was a mistake, and that she wanted him again so badly and that she wished he could have returned her feelings and that she wished he loved her back—because a part of him would have agreed with her because—_he wished he could have loved her too._

But no—being the unexpected pink haired girl that she was, she chose to pull back from their embrace and smile widely at him through tear pricked eyes and a red puffy nose and say to him—

"Sasuke…I…I'm in love again. _This_ time—I…_I'm getting married to him_."

There was no 'I miss you' or 'I still love you.'

Because he knew from the beginning when she first confessed to him—_they would never be together_.

…

When he was twenty two, he was expecting the climax of his life to happen. He never expected the climax would be to see her _again_. And he never expected the way they'd meet again would be by an invitation to her _wedding_ and _engagement party_. He never expected that she would ever love again. Never expected she would still pick up the pieces of that rock hard heart he'd managed to break apart and glue them back together within a year. But that was something he'd learned to hate about her—she always did the damned unexpected thing. They'd held onto each other tightly as if for their lives and then the first thing she said to him in a year—

"_Sasuke…I…I'm in love again. This time—I…I'm getting married with him."_

* * *

_Tick tock, tick tock _

that hand  
that was always there

reached out to someone  
that

wasn't him.

_Your time is up. _

(tick...tick...ticking...  
tock...tock...tick tocking...  
**_stopped_**.)

* * *

**Felt like trying my hand at angst—I ruin the mood very quickly, as you can see. :D**

**Please review, it inspires me to write more!**

_Lots of love,_

_XOXO Kaze-chan _


End file.
